Andy Murray must return to his least favourite court in grand slam tennis for his third-round match against Andrey Kuznetsov at the US Open on Saturday.

While Arthur Ashe Stadium, where he impressively dispatched Matthias Bachinger in round two, ranks second only to Centre Court in Murray's affection, Louis Armstrong has been a place of unremitting struggle.

The good news for Murray is he usually wins in the end - a 2010 defeat by Stan Wawrinka not withstanding - but drama can normally be guaranteed on Flushing Meadows' second stage.

It was on Armstrong on Monday where Murray was hit by a severe bout of cramp during his match against Robin Haase that could easily have led to defeat.

The eighth seed will be back playing in the heat of the day on Saturday, although temperatures are not predicted to be quite as warm as in the first few days of the tournament.

Murray still does not know why cramp struck but will not worry unduly about the possibility of a repeat episode.

"You just take each day as it comes," he said.

"You never know what's going to happen from day to day. Monday was very, very hot, humid conditions.

"(Against Bachinger) it was pretty cool at the end, extremely windy, a different court. Each day in tennis things change. So you've just got to move on, trust the work that you've done and get ready for the next match."

Murray would have expected to play his old rival Fernando Verdasco but the Spaniard was upset by Russian Kuznetsov in five sets on Thursday.

"He's had a couple of big wins in the slams this year," said Murray, whose knowledge of other players is unfailingly excellent.

"He beat (David) Ferrer at Wimbledon and obviously here against Verdasco. I've never played him before. I don't know his game that well, but I've seen him play a little bit.

"He hits the ball pretty flat. Likes to go for his shots a lot. This court's fairly quick, so that will probably help him as well. But I'll watch a little bit of video (on Friday) evening, try to understand his game a bit better."

Kuznetsov won the Wimbledon junior title in 2009 but it is not until this year that he has made an impression at the grand slams.

The 23-year-old, who is coached by his father Alexander, said: "It was pretty hard, I had some bad periods. In the beginning it seemed to be easy that I was going to go to the top 100.

"Finally I came to top 100 two years ago for the first time and then again this year. I have been working a lot and I hope that I will stay in the top 100 and will get better and better in my ranking and in my level of game."

Friday was a day of upsets in the women's draw, with qualifier Mirjana Lucic-Baroni knocking out second seed Simona Halep to reach the fourth round at a slam for the first time in 15 years.

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